Background
Kurdish-language programmes were completely forbidden from the media in Turkey from 1925 until 2002 when restrictions were relaxed somewhat. However during this time Kurdish stations started broadcasting to Turkey via satellite from Europe. Initially there also were several Turkish language commercial satellite broadcasters established in a similar manner in response to the TRT monopoly. However with the deregulation of broadcasting within Turkey all of these have moved their operations to within Turkey itself, and many of them have now been licensed on terrestrial frequencies.
In 2004, the national public broadcaster TRT became the first major broadcaster to broadcast a Kurdish-language programme although initially TRT only broadcast Kurdish programmes once per week, along with a handful of local TV and radio stations. These programmes were initially limited 45 minutes per day (an hour per week on TRT), are heavily censored, must include Turkish sub-titles and should not include children's programmes and any other types of educational programmes. The programmes are mostly focused on Ataturk and Turkish ancient history.
In 2008 TRT announced they were planning to launch their own fulltime Kurdish-language channel TRT 6 with programming "promoting the Turkish Republic and its values as well as to counter the propaganda from the PKK channel Roj TV." On January 1, 2009, TRT 6 was officially opened with a new year's special including Kurdish singers such as Rojin. The channel has been promoted with much fanfare prior to the March 2009 local elections in Turkey, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan using Kurdish at party rallies in the south east to welcome the channel.
Read more about this topic: Roj TV
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